Geopathic stress: Just for the gullible?

Acupuncture for the Earth? I can hear the whip-crack of turning pages blinding this feature forever. Still, let me smartly break ground on this contentious topic — the world is more than we know.

Geopathic stress (GS) as it is termed, is suggested as safe electromagnetic waves released from deep within the Earth’s core, which come to the surface. These natural and harmless vibrations can, it is claimed, be distorted by the flow of underground watercourses playing on the energy release, creating GS, which can over time impact our enjoyment of our living spaces and even damage our health.

The water involved could, it is said, be conducted by man-made drains and pipes, or could run along natural streams running through cracks and crevices and alluvial springs beneath the ground.

The water and/or certain geological faults are believed to disturb and intensify the harmony of the vibrations in the human body (measured in Hertz and said to be safe at 7.8 Hz).

These rogue forces can, it is claimed, be “cleared” or tuned out, by a dedicated energy specialist or shamanic healer.

(The pseudoscience sceptics are now on the Wishlist pages of Esther McCarthy, putting all this hilarious “quackery” behind them with the prospect of a nice scatter cushion). The rest of you — stay with me and open-minded for a few hundred words more, please.

GS is often mashed up by its true believers with electromagnetic fields (EMF or EM fields) and the genuinely troubling issues surrounding electro-smog and “sick building syndrome”. Scientific, biological and geological terminology from brain wave activity to plate tectonics, is widely appropriated.

The battle for recognition of EMFs negative physical and psychological influences rages on. GS and EMF and radio frequencies (RF) are not one and the same. EMF is largely created by electrical devices indoors, power masts and large electrical installations outdoors. The World Health Organisation continues to patiently fund research on EMF, but does not recognise GS as even existing.

Suggested GS “disorders” arise regularly in online features in natural healing circles, in the advertising of GS clearing services and declared in niche, non-academic investigations, in the area swirling around complementary health practices.

Health problems allied to GS anomalies are suggested to range from sleep disturbances to more serious ailments arising from the proposed “lowering of the immune system”. These almost always feature (in a worrying laundry-list backed up by some mid-century “evidence” dear to the GS division) — cancers. Cancer is click-bait for just about all of us. You won’t find evidence, acceptance or advocacy of GS in any modern mainstream medical, scientific or engineering peer-reviewed research paper or journals. Where you will see support is in the stories, anecdotes and passionate feedback offered by clients of GS clearing in Ireland and across the world.

Does GS clearing simply rely on belief to succeed?

GS “clearing” and the lowering of potentially harmful energy flows, utilises the art of dowsing to test for problem areas beneath and around the home and even out across farmed land. Now, the most granite-faced builder or farmer will stoically deploy a diviner for finding wells and water directions.

Is it understood?

No, but it’s a traditional, supernatural favourite. My own well was found in about six minutes by a local man, dowsing with a split stick.

Most GPs I’ve gone to in the past twenty years have been open to the nebulous, teasing positives of everything from meditative practices to Reiki and homeopathy (whose medical merits are famously hard to pin down). It’s worth at least giving a practitioner in GS or space-clearing a hearing.

You can follow both GS and dowsing through Curry and Hartmann grids, electrophysiological studies and Schumann resonances down all the byways of the World Wide Web. German dowser Gustav Freiherr von Pohl (1873-1938) is your first stop, as he’s generally acknowledged as the founder of the GS movement.

Edwin Flavin is a young shamanic healer based in Dungarvan, Co Waterford and well known for his work in Reiki and meditative healing at the Yoga House in Douglas, Cork.

He’s the least hard-sell style individual I have ever met, but quietly passionate about all aspects of his work. Challenging him on the lack of hard proof of the phenomena of GS, I find his curiosity, commitment and open delight in the efficacy of energy healing, including GS rebalancing, to be consistent and compelling.

“Belief does have a part to play in what I call ‘lightening’ energy problems like GS,” Edwin explains, “all I can tell you is that it works.

“My clients report real changes in their experience of living in the house following my visit. Often they will ask me not to make it obvious to their neighbours or even family, why I am there.

“They are embarrassed, but not embarrassed enough to turn away from their feelings that something is wrong in an area of the house. People come to me, I don’t seek clients out.” Would he welcome up-to-date, meaningful scientific research into GS? “Absolutely.” Fifteen years ago, I had my own house “space-cleared” for a newspaper feature. The experience ended up having more to do with the expulsion of evil entities than the repelling of watercourses. It left us baffled and mildly traumatised.

Stories abound of chancers, fear-mongering and expensive faux surveys. Lengths of steel rebar are used to “pierce” the energy. Bold commands issue from GS clearers that trenches be dug around a problematic house perimeter — water filled copper pipes are often laid into the groundwork, too. Costs can spiral into thousands of euro.

“I can see why these things have happened,” Edwin muses, “turning the ground — that makes sense to an Irish person. Something’s happening, construction work.

“I don’t approach GS that way, and it’s a single visit. First I have a cup of tea with the client and let them know who I am.

“My typical client is well travelled, educated and outward-looking. There is some belief there already. I never dismiss conventional medical advice — I’m not competing.

“The relationship matters and I do the energy rebalancing on the house with the family. Dowsing allows me to locate the problem areas of underground water, pools, or perhaps a mineral deposit.” Edwin tells me that when we are resting or sleeping over a GS anomaly, we are vulnerable to its influence. Being recumbent for longer periods on a sofa or bed – the discreet damage adds up. The solution?

“In a ceremony, all together if possible, we focus on drawing the energies up and out of the earth, lightening that area. Using a drum and calling on the ancestors of the land and family, we put our attention to rebalancing and harmonising the energy.” Really? Do people really invest in such a ceremony?

“It’s dowsing that generally wakes people up during the process, and yes, I know it’s often a struggle for them to trust. When I dowse at the start and the rods show the GS problems, and when we dowse afterward, I don’t just do it — they do it.

“They feel it, they can see it, and weeks later they report that the house is just more ‘comfortable’. Anyone can learn to dowse and it’s very obvious — a physical experience. You become an extension of the rods through your body.” I would just like to apologise here to the guests of the hotel where I performed a bumbling water divination in East Cork last week.

Twenty minutes striding up and down the carpeted corridors guided by Edwin — and high squeaks as the rods drew what appeared to be the presence and direction of water beneath the flooring.

Would the clues offered by dowsing be enough to make me jump on board with GS believers? I don’t know, but I remain certain the world is more than we know.